Over President’s Day weekend (February 16-18) the “chess party of the year”, the US Amateur Team Championships, begin in four locations.

The US Amateur Team East, also known as the World Amateur Team is set in Parsippany, New Jersey. CLO coverage will include tidbits from Texas Tech Program director Al Lawrence, who will also be contributing an article for the magazine. We’ll also have US Chess Scoop coverage, featuring another video by Jason Smiles, a chess afficiando who stopped by the Amateur East for the past two years to learn about structured tournament competition and preparation.

Advance entries include WI Chess Academy
led by GM Josh Friedel and strong youth teams such as the The Illini
Schmakelers with Eric Rosen, Sam Schmakel, Michael Auger and Akshay
Indusekar. The Schmakelers includes three students at The University of
Illinois (Pan-American co-champs) as well as Sam Schmakel, who
was just featured in a Chicago Tribune article. Darrian Robinson will
lead the U of Chicago A team.
Lindenwood University will also bring two teams, while GMs Andre
Diamant and Anatoly Bykhovsky of Webster University lead two teams.

The US Amateur Team South will be held in Sunrise, Florida. Organizer Jon Haskel said, “The Presidents are waiting for the players. No rain in the forecast, but the highs will “only” be in the 70’s.” See a list of preregistered teams here.

The U.S. Amateur Team West will be held near San Francisco in Pleasanton. Organizer Salman Azhar said, “Festivities include a scholastic one-day event as well as 2-day and 3-day schedules for the open event. There are many other teams still registering but the juniors have shown clear intentions to send a clear message to the adults in the area.”

Last year Berkeley Chess's Forfeit by Disconnection won the event. This year the two top-rated teams, Bay Area Chess BAC Attack (Wheeler, Viswanadha, Lu, Virtanen) and Sicilian Mafia (Panchanatham, Beilin, Vasudeva, Jangle), are composed of the top juniors in the area. See links to advance entries, online registration, and more info at Bay Area Chess.